Dark Mirror - Diane Duane [42]
“What about mass sensing?” Picard said.
Geordi smiled. “I did a little tinkering. The field is doubled with a graviton mirroring field on its inside. Gravitons are only half of the way we sense mass, but they’re the important half: it’s the “particulate” component of gravity that triggers our mass sensors, and I’m betting theirs are the same. The field can be collapsed for millisecond periods to keep graviton-buildup anomalies from becoming a problem.”
Picard sighed. “Well, that would seem to solve the problem. I would congratulate you, gentlemen—if the success weren’t going to imminently place one of you in even worse danger.” He looked from O’Brien to Geordi again. “But you’re quite sure about the feasibility of this work on the shuttlecraft?”
“Yes, sir,” Geordi said. “It won’t exactly be a stroll down O’Connell Street.”
O’Brien said, “Well, marginally simpler. But it can certainly be done. It waits only your order.”
“Then make it so.”
“I’ll get the engineering team down there,” O’Brien said, and went off to see to it.
“Meanwhile,” Picard said, “have you finished preparing your “raid” on the computer core?”
Geordi nodded. “Yes, sir. It’s as complete as I could make it. Hwiii had a few suggestions, and he’s looking the routines over and making additions even as we speak. By the time we have the shuttlecraft ready, the scan-and-download routine will be complete, and I’ll be ready to go.”
“Good.” Picard sighed, then added, “Commander Riker tells me that a short while ago he got a scan of your counterpart in the other ship. He says your uniform will be ready in an hour or so—he wanted to work with the design team to make sure the tailoring was correct. He describes it, though, as “somewhat drafty.”“
Geordi shook his head, bemused, and grinned. “The man’s a perfectionist.”
“Lieutenant,” Picard said somewhat uncomfortably, and Geordi looked at him. “Understand that you are at liberty, even now, to refuse this mission if you feel it cannot be managed, or if the danger is too great. You’ll be needed to implement the information you’re going to fetch. There is no use losing you.”
Geordi shook his head again, slowly this time. “Captain, it’s got to be me. We’ve still got no evidence that Data is there. The counselor can’t handle this … and she’s going to have her hands full, anyway, watching my back for whatever might sneak up behind it. Don’t you worry about me.”
“I always worry, as you well know. Be sure that you take great care.”
After that, work began in earnest down in the main shuttle bay. Picard went down to see the work once it was well in hand and found that O’Brien had been serious when he said that the alterations he planned wouldn’t take long. He had simply had Geordi lend him nearly every engineering crew member on shift at that point, all but those supervising the engine room proper. About sixty people were swarming all over the shuttlecraft Hawking, taking out the extra chairs, flooring, and the other usual fittings, and installing the guts of a transporter array. It was still not a small-time installation, even with the considerable manpower working at it. Right now they had actually taken the side of the shuttlecraft off— the paneling first, then everything right down to the duranium framework—to fit in the two big round “tubs” that held the main and backup pattern buffer tanks, and the biofilter structures. They could have beamed the buffer tubs in, but there was so much work to be done routing the associated optical and other cabling through the body of the shuttle that it was as simple to partially disassemble it. The transporter’s targeting scanners and the energizing and phase-transition coils were already installed against the ceiling of the shuttle. The control console, being modular, had taken the least trouble and had been put in first, slotted into one of the aft